Stamford man gets 50 months for gun thefts

John Nickerson

Updated 9:50 pm, Thursday, March 20, 2014

NEW HAVEN -- A Stamford man was sentenced by a federal judge in New Haven on Wednesday to 50 months in jail for stealing and selling firearms.

On Aug. 28, 2012, Michael Lotz, now 45, and others stole six firearms from a Vine Road home in Stamford, according to a news release from Deirdre Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

The owner of that home has since been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and being in possession of bomb-making materials.

Lotz, of Morgan Street in Stamford, was arrested the day after the burglary, when police heard he took the guns and was getting ready to sell them, his arrest affidavit said.

Police said they saw Lotz leave home and push a shopping cart up Strawberry Hill Court with a large cylindrical object in it. Police said they saw Lotz push the cart to a Hackett Circle home, one-third of a mile away, and watched as he pulled the cover off what was in the cart, revealing a rifle. Officers also saw Lotz transfer at least one weapon to another man, the affidavit states.

A short time later, police contacted a Hackett Circle resident and told him he was seen taking the gun from Lotz. The man agreed to take police back to his home and give them the rifle, and he pointed to a blue sleeping bag under his bed from which officers retrieved three rifles, police said. When Lotz brought the guns over to Hackett Circle, the resident said, Lotz sold them to him for $40 worth of marijuana, police said.

A special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined a Calico M-100 recovered by police was an assault weapon.

Police said after selling a gun to an undercover officer that same afternoon, Lotz was charged with four counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of an assault weapon, sale of an assault weapon and two counts of risk of injury to a minor.

He was held in lieu of $160,000 on the state charges. Federal prosecutors later took the case to federal court, where Lotz was sentenced on Wednesday.